Santander Bond on Ethereum Accrues Its First Quarterly Interest

In September, Spanish banking giant Santander became the first financial entity to manage all aspects of a bond on a public blockchain. The $20M bond on the Ethereum blockchain has now accrued its first quarterly interest.

The bond, first settled in September, was big news for the world’s largest smart contract platform when it was first traded.

Now, we have an update on Santander’s bond – it has accrued $99,000 in interest for the first quarterly period, as reported by Whale Alert (@whale_alert).

🧾 A #santander bond that was settled on #ethereum has accrued the first 99,000 USD quarterly interest. The series of transactions that are part of this are:

– Whale Alert (@whale_alert) December 10, 2019

Ethereum and the Decentralized Finance Movement

The interest was distributed through a series of transactions, documented in the above Tweet.

Many are pointing to this as evidence that banks prefer Ethereum to Bitcoin. Ethereum’s latest focus has been on decentralized finance (DeFi), a hot topic in the cryptocurrency space. The goal is to move as many traditional assets onto decentralized platforms as possible, with the hopes of it reaching critical mass. Cross-communication between traditional and decentralized finance is crucial to the long-term viability of Ethereum and cryptocurrencies in general.

Banks Playing Catch Up

In May, BeInCrypto reported that banks were trying to ‘catch up’ to fintech by investing in blockchain technology. Santander, the bank responsible for this $20M bond, has committed to investing 20B euros in digitizing its information technology over the coming years.

Other banks have pledged similar amounts to make this transition possible. Altogether, it further boosts the case for